Jeff Koons: The Complete Story
A giant balloon dog, twisted as if at a child party but cast in flawless mirror steel, reflects the room and everyone in it. It is by Jeff Koons, and a version of it helped make him the artist behind the most expensive work ever sold by someone still alive.
To fans he is a genius of pure surface; to critics, the emperor of kitsch.
Koons takes the cheapest, most sentimental objects, a party balloon, a toy rabbit, a vacuum cleaner, and remakes them perfectly in steel and porcelain, turning throwaway things into fortunes.
Three stories that go deeper
These go past the caption and into what actually happened:
The Ambassadors, detail by detail, the object at the bottom that only works from one side
Luncheon of the Boating Party, detail by detail, who everybody at that table actually was
Ten women artists you need to know, the names the textbooks skipped
The shine that sells
Koons made his name with perfect, mirror finished sculptures of throwaway things. Balloon Dog looks like a party balloon blown up to giant size in gleaming steel, and you see yourself reflected in its surface.
He insists there is no hidden meaning, just acceptance and pleasure, a cool descendant of pop art, where the viewer brings the feeling.
The record breaker
In 2019 his stainless steel Rabbit sold for about ninety one million dollars, the highest price ever paid at auction for a work by a living artist. A shiny toy bunny became the most valuable contemporary object in the room.
Koons turned the art market itself into part of the show, the price almost as famous as the object.
The provocateur
Koons has courted scandal as well as money. His Made in Heaven series showed him with his then wife, the performer and politician known as Cicciolina, in explicit poses presented as fine art.
It was a deliberate collision with the nude in art, and he has also faced repeated copyright lawsuits for basing sculptures on others photographs and designs.
Pop in the palace
Koons loves a grand stage. In 2008 he became one of the first contemporary artists to take over the Palace of Versailles, placing his shiny Balloon Dog among the gilded rooms of the French kings.
It outraged traditionalists and thrilled others, pure Koons: the cheapest pop imagery in the most sacred setting, daring everyone to react.
Questions readers ask about Jeff Koons
What is he known for?
Shiny sculptures of everyday objects, above all Balloon Dog and the record breaking Rabbit.
What is his most expensive work?
Rabbit, which sold for about ninety one million dollars in 2019.
Does he make the works himself?
He designs and directs them, while a large studio team fabricates them.
Is he still working?
Yes, he remains one of the most prominent living artists.
Why the balloon dog still floats
Koons forces a simple question: if a balloon dog can sell for tens of millions, what is art actually worth? He never answers it. He just keeps polishing the surface until the whole art world can see itself reflected back.
A version of Balloon Dog once shattered at a Miami art fair when a visitor accidentally knocked the small sculpture off its stand.
The fragments of a balloon dog, insured for tens of thousands, were swept into a dustpan. Before any of the fame he worked as a commodities broker on Wall Street to fund his early art, and that trader instinct never left him.
He runs a studio like a factory, designing and directing while assistants fabricate to obsessive standards, the executive of his own brand.
He turned the question of value into the work itself, and made the whole art market complicit in the answer.